Posts by Anon

Attack hides malware in PNGs and drops custom reverse tunnel on victims' machines

"payloads hidden inside PNG images - this is called steganography"

I was disappointed with the second half of that. Using Piet ( https://dangermouse.net/esoteric/piet.html ) would have shown more enthusiasm and imagination.

You could've applied all 1,449 Oracle patches and still been hit by this attack

Pricey?

Are Oracle going to go after the malware people for licensing charges for using Java?

Allstate Insurance quits Broadcom, alleges vengeful license audit on the way out

Re: Note to self...

Considering where RAM prices are going and Broadcom's part in that, 512 MB seems like an onerous burden unless Broadcom contribute something like a non-returnable $200bn (which may increase yearly).

Mozilla warns UK: Breaking VPNs will not magically fix Britain's age-check mess

Re: vote reform

"people should return to the office" - how much time has Farage spent attending to his constituents in Clacton?

Bedrock and a hard place: Claude adventure leaves AWS user staring down $30K invoice

Re: I see a pattern developing

Yeah, Amazon are doing the inverse of that. Without a cup of tea to make it civil.

Iran claims US used backdoors to knock out networking equipment during war

Yeah, somehow the "ID cards" thing seems to keep surfacing despite different political parties getting in over the past few decades.

Maybe the person behind the scenes for that one will retire soon, but there is no doubt that they've made sure that their malware has been installed in the successor. Even though it is to the detriment of their grandchildren or later.

Some greed, OK, we can bear it. Excessive greed, we all suffer.

FBI is investigating breach that may have hit its wiretapping tools

Isn't DOGE the one that was set up to send login details to foreign entities?

Finnish cops grill crew of ship suspected of undersea cable sabotage

Re: The youth of today.

Consider voluntary versus "voluntary".

Microsoft appears to move on from its most loyal ‘customers’ – Contoso and Fabrikam

Wonder where they got the name from...

Maybe they were inspired to think of the name while tracking their cycling or running using a particular fitness-related app? Will Zava go the way of SkyDrive?

Seven years later, Airbus is still trying to kick its Microsoft habit

Re: i think it's all the VBA macros

Aah, so you're a waffle man.

Re: Interesting choice...

Heh, I wasn't previously aware of something between clue-by-four and OADS.

HSBC spies $207B crater in OpenAI's expansion goals

Re: Making deals with money you don't have

If you owe the bank $1000 it's your problem, if you owe the bank $1000M it's their problem. The bank's failure is falling for the salesmen getting them in to the second position.

De-duplicating the desktops: Let's come together, right now

[Chorus]

Let's come together

Right now

Oh yeah

In sweet harmony

The Beloved

Just in case someone missed it...

Lloyds Banking Group claims Microsoft Copilot saves staff 46 minutes a day

It should take longer than that: the time to formulate a prompt for CoPilot to make up something which looks like it's relevant, and then the time to verify if it has generated something usable for serious stuff, like looking after other people's money. Of course, the first step could be omitted at great savings to the environment and our money.

Fresh UK postcode tool points out best mobile network in your area

Roughly the same here.

The blurb under the percentages includes "the chance of being able to stream video, make a video call, or quickly download a webpage with images to your phone when you have coverage." Lol. What about the chance of being able to make a phone call or send/receive SMS?

Wi-Fi calling for me >95% of the time, especially if it's been raining or they've recently "improved" the service.

Trump threatens to add formal Apple Tax on top of the 'Apple tax'

You're bribing, errr, lobbying it wrong

Can Apple afford $438bn, cash in hand tomorrow, for a load of republicans to resign with immediate effect?

Microsoft dumps AI into Notepad as 'Copilot all the things' mania takes hold in Redmond

Edlin64 !

Maybe it's time for edlin to return.

UK Home Office silent on alleged Apple backdoor order

Re: This is the Home Office, not the government

But on the left side of the pond, the backside of the person in the driving seat is being used for the source of the refill. Why do some people think that is not bad?

Three and Vodafone: We need to merge because our networks are rubbish

Re: our networks are rubbish

"their source code, having been inspected officially, was lacking and riddled with bugs."

As compared to...?

AT&T intends to quit VMware, Broadcom claims in legal broadside

MBA PP missing a word?

Is there somewhere an MBA training PowerPoint presentation that has missed "Don't" out of "Don't screw your customers"?

To patch this server, we need to get someone drunk

Re: Reminds me of a claim by a sysadmin

The Internet suggests 49.7 days (2^32 milliseconds) for Windows 95 and 98, and Microsoft acknowledged it:

http://web.archive.org/web/20111224012719/http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216641

Client tells techie: You're not leaving the country until this printer is working

Re: African customs

Dear Sir,

I am a General from Kambezi. Your help would be very appreciated.

I want to transfer all of my fortune into stocks outside of Kambezi due to a frozen account.

If you could be so kind and attend to install the necessary computer systems...

Stack Overflow simply bans folks who don't want their advice used to train AI

Re: (What kind of person is turned on by silly little badges? Dumb scores?)

Yore: using it wrongly.

I told Halle Berry where to go during a programming gig in LA

"a suspicious looking PC in the corner"

For Internet Rule 35?

BOFH: The greatest victory is that which requires no battle

When did Simon start speaking American English?

The name of the colour is "grey" in New Zealand English, not "gray". Did someone upset the spill chucker?

Father of SQL says yes to NoSQL

Re: Unasked question

I was wondering about that the other day, and then I... SQUIRREL!

Help! My mouse climbed a wall and now it doesn't work right

Re: most satisfying

Unless it's a user's mouse you're fixing. Best to show them how to fix it themself for next time.

BOFH: Smells like Teams spirit

can I call you Chris?

"Yes, that is my name."

As opposed to "Can I call you, Chris?"

Apple cuts hundreds of jobs after ditching the car project and more

Most of the layoffs [listed on this .xlsx doc]...

...which we are sure has no macro viruses...

Virgin Media comes top of the flops for customer complaints

It works well enough if you're lucky.

If you wanted reliable, you'd have a failover from one supplier to a different supplier, using different ducts under different roads, no infrastructure in common, and you'd be in charge of all the backhoe rental companies in the area. With satellite comms as a backup.

Douglas Adams was right: Telephone sanitizers are terrible human beings

Re: Maybe I am too American

"Human resources" sounds too much like a supplier to the Soylent Corporation.

Man who nearly killed physical media returns with $60,000 vinyl turntable

Re: Where do you live?

It'll need a new belt by now, and probably also the rubber suspension band that holds the motor will need to be replaced, if my Planar 3 from the 80s is anything to go by. New belts/bands are cheap. Careful of the screws: they are only plastic. Oh, and have a look at the capacitor too—they used those infamous RIFA ones. A safe replacement one is cheap from RS.

Ring system discovered around dwarf planet Quaoar leaves astronomers puzzled

Or, a slight modification for a proper light bulb-moment,

- It is made out of solid tungsten!...

UK Supreme Court snubs Assange anti-extradition bid

Re: Well that's probably that, then

Well yes, but isn't there precedent for England sending supposed criminals to Australia, the native land of the accused in this case? (Sorry, if you don't want him either, Australia. Maybe there's some foundation that could pay the internment costs.)

Deutsche Bank seeks options as sanctions threaten Russian dev unit

Re: Slightly related note

It appears that good weather means chaos and destruction to some people with a lot of money. Them having the money just means that other people don't have it, so spreading misery for them to gloat over.

Backblaze report finds SSDs as reliable as HDDs

Re: FWIW

It's OK, they aren't OCZ Synapse SSDs. Great for the few months they worked... But that's all over and done with now.

Nothing to scoff at: Crisps and nuts biz KP Snacks smacked in ransomware hack attack

To the German Commander:

N U T S !

-- The American Commander

Billionaires see wealth double during pandemic as tech bros lead the charge

Re: ... would each get $100 or so.

But if a village of people getting $100 pooled the money, they could buy tools to help till the land, seeds suitable for their environment that would produce plants that produced seeds for the next year, schooling materials for education - especially for girls, and so on. The lack of a shop in the next village does not preclude the purchase of items.

Wi-Fi not working? It's time to consult the lovely people on those fine Linux forums

Re: "first read the fine forum thread until the end"

Hang on... don't you read the manual /before/ buying the equipment? And compare it to the manuals of the other potential purchases if they passed the go/no go feature-set comparison?

The Filth Filter is part of the chipset, honest. Goes between the TPM and SEP. No, really

Re: not [...] just any link

Were suitable links supplied?

BOFH: Time to put the Pretty Dumb F in PDF reader

Re: Brilliant!

Macromedia Flash!

We have some sad news about Facebook. It has returned to the internet after six-hour mega outage

Something like Arthur C. Clarke's Nine Billion Names of God?

Fix five days of server failure with this one weird trick

Re: The "inspector"

Definite marriage material!!!

Happy birthday, Sinclair Radionics: We'll remember you for your revolutionary calculators and crap watches

Faster!

The Sinclair Cambridge Programmable Calculator might have been the last electronic device that I could multiply two double-digit numbers faster in my head than by typing them in and waiting.

NASA fixes Hubble Space Telescope using backup power supply unit, payload computer

YAY NASA!

YAY NASA!

YAY CAREFUL AND CONSIDERED ENGINEERING!

Thank you to all the people who have worked so hard on this.

Kaspersky Password Manager's random password generator was about as random as your wall clock

Re: If you value your security get a hardware random number generator -- or two

Why do you trust trust TrueRNG? How can I trust your reply?

Pentagon scraps $10bn JEDI winner-takes-all cloud contract

Re: The government should own its own cloud

I thought that the government was meant to be the consolidation and supplying of the people's requirements, for the benefit of the people. (And the people include those suppliers.)

Openreach to UK businesses: Switch is about to hit the fan. Prepare for withdrawal of the copper-based phone network now or risk disruption

Re: I don't understand

BT have Phorm (q.v.) on honour.

IBM's 18-month company-wide email system migration has been a disaster, sources say

Re: the big four

> the big four of enterprise email (Gmail, Outlook, Notes)

I don't think I want any of those three to account for two...